No Arabic abstract
In solids, the high density of charged particles makes many-body interactions a pervasive principle governing optics and electronics[1-12]. However, Walter Kohn found in 1961 that the cyclotron resonance of Landau-quantized electrons is independent of the seemingly inescapable Coulomb interaction between electrons[2]. While this surprising theorem has been exploited in sophisticated quantum phenomena[13-15] such as ultrastrong light-matter coupling[16], superradiance[17], and coherent control[18], the complete absence of nonlinearities excludes many intriguing possibilities, such as quantum-logic protocols[19]. Here, we use intense terahertz pulses to drive the cyclotron response of a two-dimensional electron gas beyond the protective limits of Kohns theorem. Anharmonic Landau ladder climbing and distinct terahertz four- and six-wave mixing signatures occur, which our theory links to dynamic Coulomb effects between electrons and the positively charged ion background. This new context for Kohns theorem unveils previously inaccessible internal degrees of freedom of Landau electrons, opening up new realms of ultrafast quantum control for electrons.
The magnetoplasmon spectrum of Landau level transitions in hexagonal boron nitride-encapsulated graphene is explored via infrared transmission magnetospectroscopy, as a function of the filling factor at fixed magnetic field. As the lowest Landau level occupancy is increased from half-filling, a non-monotonic progression of multiple cyclotron resonance peaks is observed, with a single peak evolving into four peaks and back to two, all with linewidths of order 0.5 meV. This provides a novel window on the interplay of electron interactions with broken spin and valley symmetries in the quantum Hall regime. Analysis of the peak energies shows an indirect enhancement of spin gaps below the Fermi energy, a Dirac mass at half-filling that is nearly 50% larger than when the lowest Landau level is completely full, and a small but clear particle-hole asymmetry. We suggest a key role is played by the boron nitride in enabling interaction-enhanced broken symmetries to be observed in graphene cyclotron resonance.
We consider graphene superlattice miniband fermions probed by electronic interferometry in magneto-transport experiments. By decoding the observed Fabry-Perot interference patterns together with our corresponding quantum transport simulations, we find that the Dirac quasiparticles originating from the superlattice minibands do not undergo conventional cyclotron motion but follow more subtle trajectories. In particular, dynamics at low magnetic fields is characterized by peculiar, straight trajectory segments. Our results provide new insights into superlattice miniband fermions and open up novel possibilities to use periodic potentials in electron optics experiments.
In conventional Hermitian systems with the open boundary condition, Blochs theorem is perturbatively broken down, which means although the crystal momentum is not a good quantum number, the eigenstates are the superposition of several extended Bloch waves. In this paper, we show that Blochs theorem can be non-perturbatively broken down in some Hermitian Bosonic systems. The quasiparticles of the system are the superposition of localized non-Bloch waves, which are characterized by the complex momentum whose imaginary part determines the localization properties. Our work is a Hermitian generalization of the non-Hermitian skin effect, although they share the same mechanism.
We investigate the spin dynamics of high-mobility two-dimensional electrons in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells grown along the $[001]$ and $[110]$ directions by time-resolved Faraday rotation at low temperatures. In measurements on the $(001)$-grown structures without external magnetic fields, we observe coherent oscillations of the electron spin polarization about the effective spin-orbit field. In non-quantizing magnetic fields applied normal to the sample plane, the cyclotron motion of the electrons rotates the effective spin-orbit field. This rotation leads to fast oscillations in the spin polarization about a non-zero value and a strong increase in the spin dephasing time in our experiments. These two effects are absent in the $(110)$-grown structure due to the different symmetry of its effective spin-orbit field. The measurements are in excellent agreement with our theoretical model.
The efficient conversion of thermal energy to mechanical work by a heat engine is an ongoing technological challenge. Since the pioneering work of Carnot, it is known that the efficiency of heat engines is bounded by a fundamental upper limit, the Carnot limit. Theoretical studies suggest that heat engines may be operated beyond the Carnot limit by exploiting stationary, non-equilibrium reservoirs that are characterized by a temperature as well as further parameters. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we demonstrate that the efficiency of a nano-beam heat engine coupled to squeezed thermal noise is not bounded by the standard Carnot limit. Remarkably, we also show that it is possible to design a cyclic process that allows for extraction of mechanical work from a single squeezed thermal reservoir. Our results demonstrate a qualitatively new regime of non-equilibrium thermodynamics at small scales and provide a new perspective on the design of efficient, highly miniaturized engines.